The West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project (WALFA)

The West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project
represents an important new way that skilled Indigenous fire
managers in Australia’s fire-prone tropical savannas can work
with the broader community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
protect culture and biodiversity on their country, and bring in
social and economic benefits to their communities.

The project is a partnership between the Aboriginal Traditional
Owners and Indigenous ranger groups, Darwin Liquefied Natural Gas
(DLNG), the Northern Territory Government and the Northern Land
Council. Through this partnership Indigenous Ranger groups are
implementing strategic fire management across 28,000 km2
of Western Arnhem Land (yellow area in picture below), in
Australia’s Northern Territory, to offset some of the
greenhouse gas emissions from the Liquefied Natural Gas plant at
Wickham Point in the city of Darwin.

The Arnhem Land Plateau (in yellow and orange)
rises from the savanna lowlands (in green). Kakadu National Park
covers part of the Western edge and the West Arnhem Land Fire
Abatement Project (outlined) covers most of the remainder of the
Plateau.

The project is now reducing greenhouse gas emissions from this
area by the equivalent of over 100,000 tonnes of CO2
each year. It does this by undertaking strategic fire management
from early in the dry season to reduce the size and extent of
unmanaged wildfires. Such practices are also helping to conserve
environmental and cultural values in the project region - values
equivalent to those in the adjacent World Heritage-listed Kakadu
National Park.

In return Darwin LNG is paying the Indigenous fire managers
around $1Million a year to provide this service – with this
funding also bringing in new jobs, networks and educational
opportunities to the region.

Cultural Heritage of Global Importance

The project is helping to revive Indigenous culture on the
Arnhem Land Plateau. This is a living tradition involving various
aspects of culture including rock wall painting and customary land
management that extends back over tens of thousands of years. The
thousands of rock art sites alone likely represent the
world’s oldest continuing record of artistic endeavour
– and the project is helping to protect some of these sites
and other sites of cultural significance from the ravages of
wildfire. To find out more see A rich culture in the menu at
left.

Plant and animal species of international
significance

The project is also helping to safeguard habitats of a rich
assemblage of species of plants and animals – many of them
unique to the plateau. Over millions of years the sandstone country
has provided a stable environment that has allowed many species to
evolve with adaptations. To find out more see Refuge for plants
and animals in the menu at left.

Exodus and the age of wildfire

The destructive pattern of frequent wildfires in the plateau
appears to date from several decades ago when Aboriginal people had
largely left the region and the newly emptied landscape started
being swept by large fires that had their origins in the more
settled areas in the surrounding lowlands. This new fire pattern
has had significant and severe consequences for cultural sites and
plants and animals. It also has consequences for greenhouse gas
emissions as this new fire regime likely emits significantly more
of these gases than the fire patterns of the past. To find out more
see The impact of wildfire in the menu at left.

Burning to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

In these extensive, sparsely peopled landscapes that are
naturally prone to burn every dry season, the most effective tool
to prevent fire is fire itself. Aboriginal people have known this
for a long time, and the idea of burning patchy fires and fire
breaks in the early, cooler part of the dry season to prevent
uncontrollable wildfires in the late, hotter part of the dry season
is still a practical solution to managing wildfire today. Reducing
the incidence of wildfire in this way can be shown to also reduce
greenhouse gas emissions from the region. To find out more
see Fire and greenhouse gases in the menu at left.

Reviving the Plateau using two tool kits

Traditional Indigenous methods of fire management worked well in
the past when there were many groups on the plateau, today however,
there are far fewer people who work in Indigenous Ranger groups,
and the wildfire threat they need to manage is probably greater
than it was in the past. To help them, modern Indigenous fire
managers have added some useful items from the western tool kit:
helicopters and aircraft help them put in fire breaks quickly over
large areas and close-to-real time satellite data on the location
of fires can be accessed over websites. Nor did Indigenous people
in the past have to measure the amount of greenhouse gases abated
because of their fire management, so today researchers are
contracted to do this job. To find out more see Reviving the
plateau in the menu at left.

What’s been achieved?

The first four years of the project have been remarkably
successful, abating the equivalent of around 488,000 tonnes of
Carbon Dioxide, or 122,000 tonnes a year – ahead of the
100,000 tonnes a year the project is contracted to deliver. There
has been a significant reduction in the incidence of destructive
wildfires, however it will take some time to verify that this has
produced a recovery in the status of threatened and declining
species on the plateau. The fire management has involved over one
hundred part-time jobs for Indigenous Rangers and others and has
allowed many different ranger groups and communities to coordinate
their activities and build regional collaboration. To find out more
see What's been achieved? in the menu at left.

Where to from here?

The outcomes achieved by the West Arnhem Fire
project have potential application across fire-prone tropical
Australia and other fire-prone savannas of the tropics. Major
companies are investigating the feasibility of entering into
similar Greenhouse Gas offsets agreements using this approach.
Governments and Indigenous land management groups are also looking
to extend the practice of managing fire as an environmental service
to other areas in fire-prone, biodiversity-rich, primarily
Indigenously owned landscapes in northern Australia. To find
out more see The Future in the menu at left.

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